A hermit who lived in ascetic solitude on a mountain and contended against the iconoclast heresy.
Our Venerable Father Phosterius the Hermit
Phosterius is venerated as a hermit of the Byzantine East who is commemorated on January 5. The surviving accounts of his life are sparse: tradition records that he withdrew to a lofty mountain, where he led a life of ascetic solitude, and that he became known for upholding the veneration of icons against the iconoclast heresy.
According to the tradition preserved in the synaxarion, Phosterius was sustained in his solitude by an angel, who provided for his bodily needs. Through the witness of his holy life and the wonders attributed to him, he is said to have drawn many people back to the Church from the heresy of Iconoclasm.
The historical details of his life are uncertain. Some sources place him among the hermits of Anatolia, in the wilderness of what is now Turkey, and assign him to the seventh century; the in-repo record classes him broadly within the Byzantine era without fixing a precise century. The scarcity and lateness of the evidence have led at least one scholar to doubt whether the account is historically reliable.
By a flood of tears you made the desert fertile,
and your longing for God brought forth fruits in abundance.
By the radiance of miracles you illumined the whole universe!
O our holy father Phosterius, pray to Christ our God to save our souls!
Text used with permission of the Orthodox Church in America (oca.org).
The defining note of Phosterius in the tradition is his opposition to Iconoclasm, the movement that rejected the veneration of holy images. The accounts do not describe public disputations or writings but attribute his influence to the example of his ascetic life, by which he is said to have persuaded many to abandon the heresy and return to the Church.
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